AG: Hi John.EB: oh, hey there, vriska.EB: can this wait? i was about to check out this castle and see if my dad is here.AG: Your guardians are not here!EB: oh...EB: dang it!EB: do you know where they are?AG: Yes, they are in another castle. Don't worry, you'll find them later.EB: argh, how much later??AG: In a while! Man, settle down.AG: I am telling you that you will find them after a little more questing around in your awesome 8lue godhood. So why don't you relax and talk to me for a while?EB: well...EB: ok, i guess so.AG: Why don't you have your hood up, 8y the way?EB: shrug.AG: You look gr8 with the hood up. And anyway, we should 8e showing a little pride as the only ones to make god tier, don't you think?EB: pshhh.EB: i don't know if it is much of a major accomplishment, honestly.AG: John, are you mad at me?EB: um... no?AG: Then what's the matter?EB: i guess i just miss my dad. i was hoping he would be here, but apparently i won't see him for another few hours or whatever?EB: if that is what you see in the future, then i guess there's no fighting it. bluh.AG: I still find it a little hard to understand the sentimentality you attach to these adult humans.AG: It just seems so strange to me. 8ut hey, that's alien culture for you.EB: yeah, i know.EB: i guess you just have to think of them the way you think of your lusus..ses? lusi?AG: Yeah, sort of.AG: Except I never liked mine that much. ::::\AG: Even after I prototyped her, things were pretty chilly 8etween us! I spent most of my adventure avoiding her. Haha.EB: that...EB: is too bad.AG: John.AG: Are you suuuuuuuure you're not mad at me?EB: no!!!EB: why would i be mad at you, vriska?AG: 8ecause I tricked you into getting killed!!!!!!!!EB: oh. right.EB: i... actually almost forgot about that!AG: Would it help if I said I was sorry?EB: why would you need to apologize though?EB: i mean, i admit i was pretty confused about it at first, seeing my dead body in the cloud and all...EB: but in the end, you did it to help me, didn't you?EB: really, i should probably be thanking you!EB: uh...EB: are you there?AG: Yes, I am here.AG: Sorry, I wasn't sure what to say for a moment.AG: I am just so incredi8ly relieved you are not angry with me.EB: heh. i really don't know what reason i would have to be angry!EB: i mean, aside from the deception involved, but i kinda understand why you did that.EB: and in any case, you did give me a choice.AG: Yes, I did.AG: I don't know, John. You'd 8e surprised how often people resent it when you try to help them!AG: 8ut see, you really get it. That's why you're special.EB: shruuuuuuuug!AG: <33333333EB: so...EB: is that what you wanted to talk to me about?AG: Yes.AG: Well.AG: Not exactly.

So what do we call this pause? I've been batting ideas around all day. We could go with the obvious choice, the MINIGIGAPAUSE. Or maybe, MEGAPAUSE 2: BACK IN THE MEGASADDLE. Or if that makes too much sense, we could always settle on the MICROTERAPAUSE. As you can see, there are so many incredibly intelligent and meaningful things we could call this pause. Deciding how to refer to the pause is an exercise that I will leave to the reader. Feel free to discuss the matter with friends. Or strangers. Anyone who will listen really. If they start to run away, I strongly recommend you chase them.

Why don't we say that A665 begins on 4/13. That's a fun number that we all can get excited about. I have a lot of catch-up work to do between now and then. Not the least of which is drawing the actual content to be posted. But also a lot of gamedev work. Game production is rolling pretty hot right now. Stuff is being churned out almost faster than I can keep track of. Did I mention? I accidentally started running a game studio a little while ago. Whoops, sorry about that. There are all these people being paid to make things happen, and I have to be like "Yeah, keep doing that stuff, everybody." It's getting pretty easy to lose track of how many people work for What Pumpkin. My last estimate was somewhere between 30 and 1000. The true figure is a very frisky moving target.

A6A6A5, a.k.a. Caliborn's Masterpiece, is actually done. It's probably better to hold off posting it until 4/13, when more content will soon follow aftewards. I am sure pausing on that note for months would mess with your head a lot more than the note we're already pausing on. I sometimes feel I have at least a modest responsibility to manage your sanity. It'll be tough sitting on this content though. Tougher than sitting on all of A664 for the better part of a year. I don't think it is out of line to describe it as the best material this website will ever exhibit. It will be all down hill from there, in every direction. Even up.

Speaking of sanity management, way back when, I was pretty on the fence about posting A664 spaced out over months like I did, vs. all at once. Doing the latter in hindsight probably would have been a fucked up thing to do to the internet though. The GAME OVER fallout alone was a bit much as it was. Including it in tandem with the rest of it? Not sure what to make of that. Let's review the CONTENT CRUSH that would have entailed. Bad Anime -> Game Over -> Sadstuck -> Lowas Quest -> 100 retconned panels of oil -> A bunch of other shit -> Punky Serket -> Fantroll Storytime -> 8 password pages -> The Kiss On Horse Mountain -> and finally -> The Punchline. You know, that's an awful lot of baloney to publish. I think the fell-swoop reaction to all that would have been quite a thing to behold, but also, perhaps an irresponsible thing to do to a hapless fanbase after a year in hibernation. I'm told that in 2015, young people are heavily susceptible to "the feels", and trifling with those forces could be injurious to their future development. Wait, did that just sound like something your grandpa would say? Mother fuck, where did I put my cane. Oh right, I snapped it in half from shaking it at the sky.

I may have been in the process of making a point there, but we're going to have to pick this up another time. The comic isn't going to pause itself!!!

Over the last couple months, I have been surreptitiously collapsing several update horses into single, bigger horses. This means A6A6I4 is going to end a little sooner than previously advertised. Same total page count, but finishing sooner. Please consult the important horse calendar below.

So what happens when A6A6I4 is done? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm still working on everything that comes after that. I've written it mostly, but haven't drawn anything yet. There will almost certainly be another pause, but I'm not sure how long it will be yet. I will let you know after 1/19.